Last week I got an email from a teacher at a school I’d run training at recently (which shall remain nameless). We’d had a great day, the school council had come up with a real range of projects and great ways to communicate with the rest of the school. Unfortunately the email was not to tell me how well the students were getting on, but about the negative reactions from school staff. When minutes from the meeting were sent our staff comments ranged from sarcastic to deeply concerned. The posters the school council had put up explaining what they were working on were even taken down.
The school council co-ordinator asked me for advice. I’m sure she’s not the only one facing these problems, so I thought I would share what I told her with you. There isn’t a quick fix of course, but here are three things I suggest:
1. Explain the role of the school council
Make it clear to staff that the minutes are not what is going to happen, but what the students are taking on. In many cases they share the concerns of the staff and want to work with them to sort them out, that’s why their first step is often to meet with the relevant staff member. It’s not for staff members to give a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but to ask the students what the students will do to make this happen. For example, if students want more trips they should be told they need to organise them. They will need help with this and they won’t have access to the money, but it’s not for the staff member to do all the running, the whole point is getting students to make happen those things they are keen on. Students need to be clear in their own minds and especially in anything they commit to paper on the difference between what they are DOING and what they are ASKING FOR. What they are DOING will happen (with their effort) what they are ASKING FOR may not.
2. Minutes detail students’ plans of action
Project planning notes made by pupils at a recent primary training day.
Ensure that what goes into the minutes is what actions the students will take. This way staff (and others) can see that these are issues of concern to students and that they are doing something about it. It helps where the minutes say more than ‘Meet with Ms X’, but also record what students are intending on suggesting, i.e. how they will help. The ‘school council ideas form‘ should help with this – the last section asks what the person filling it out will do to help – make sure no ideas come to the meeting without something here. Ensure those actions are clearly recorded in the minutes.
3. Attach prep work to the minutes
Something else to consider is the detail of the minutes. If either of the staff members mentioned above had seen the whole discussion they would know that the issues they raised were discussed. I suggest these very brief minutes as I think in general most people don’t read long minutes and it’s difficult for the secretary to take part if they are trying to record everything. However they don’t cover the detail of the discussion. Maybe if the ideas forms or project plans were attached to the minutes it would help those not at the meeting to see the thought that had gone into it without increasing the burden on the secretary.
Do you think these ideas might help in your school? Have you done anything else that has worked?
I asked all the delegates to list as many student voice ideas, initiatives and projects as they could, both those used in their schools, and others that they had heard of. This is the list they came up with. I provided the five headings, but I did not offer a specific definition of what ‘student voice’ is. You might find it useful to prompt discussion in your school and give you some ideas for how you could expand student voice. Below the list I offer a bit of analysis of some of the methods.
Teaching and learning
Learning walks to other establishments
1st week of Scheme of Work is planning the scheme with the students
Student curriculum panels
Student governors
Students as researchers
Students into lesson programme
Peer teaching
Student interviewers
Part of departmental review/visits
‘My World’ Project-based learning, completely self-directed with vivas
Drama in Education Theatre Group [Reaction] help organise + deliver assemblies, e.g. work experience/bullying
Student appointment panels
Reading: peer mentors – Y10 top set English used to support low ‘reading age’ students in Y7 + Y8 x 30 mins per week in library
Policy consultation
Mini ‘Insted’ – termly
Peer mentoring
Golden lessons
Lesson feedback + surveys
Student researcher: what makes a good lesson?
Student mentoring
Student-led mentoring
Students used to observe and score candidates’ presentations during SELECTION PROCESS
Student mentoring Y12 pupils mentoring Y10
Reading pairs
Pupils to observe lessons and give feedback
Students involved in departmental meetings discussing teaching and learning issues
Student council
Learning council
Student SEF
Homework review: regularity, consistency, quality, use of school system
Lead learners – student observers
Student lesson observations
Student voice questionnaires in department learning reviews
Student interview panel
Language champions
Student receptionist
Digital leaders
Pupils as observers
Debating society
Student involvement in lesson observations and feedback
Student learning exchange visits
Student panel involvement in staff reviews
Student voice panel on all staff interviews
Learning walks, possible to use students
Student panel involvement in departmental reviews
Environment
Ground Force group
Looking into solar energy
Consultations for colour schemes for school
Keeping an eye on what needs doing
Chickens
Community voice reps
Enterprise reps
Students working with school interior manager to update displays around the school throughout the year
Key stage toilets
Eco school
Student marketing and branding group
School council influence on things such as uniform, dinners, toilets
BeMAD (fundraising group)
Tree planting
School council
Charity reps
Recycling
Relationships
Peer mentoring support groups
Anti-bullying support
Students running societies – e.g. politics society, debating
Student tours for visitors
Partnership with local schools’ council
Meet and greet/guides at open evenings and for visitors
Subject prefects – helping with activities involving younger pupils
Volunteer council
Student ambassadors
Working with primary students – sports leaders + dance leaders
‘Pay it forward’ council
Promoting the school – 6th Form student ambassadors (this also generates feedback)
Confidential clinic
Health and safety society (leads to STI presentations)
Peer mentors – Blue Guardian Angels – used to support younger students with emotional issues, behavioural issues or bullying
Student senior leaders + SCT meetings
Links to town council – chambers for meetings
Rights Respecting Schools
Peer mentoring
Behaviour
Behaviour for learning group
Student duty staff
Pulling pupils out of detention to discuss areas within student voice – gauge their opinion
School policies: uniform, bullying, etc.
Development of anti-bullying policy
Peer mentors – restorative justice
Development of behaviour policy
Students given specific duties to monitor behaviour at break and lunch times
Anti-bullying strategies, e.g. poster competitions/campaign, anti-bullying group
House system – vertical groups mean highest level students can assist younger pupils, e.g. UCAS admissions
Other
Fair trade
Involved in school and student liturgy groups (Catholic school)
Representation at Town Remembrance Service
Peer support
VLE: setting up a student voice forum
Ideas – feedback on student menus
House captains
Open evenings/parents evenings: front of house, tours, speaking
Shadow governors
Student council
Student interview panels for higher TLR posts
Big Idea reps
Involved in staff appointments
Young Enterprise
Charity/fundraising
Student governors
Citizenship Award: For student in Y10 who has taken his/her own initiative to support the school. Focus decided by student.
Primary school links: language, citizenship, PE, etc.
Meeting VIPs
Visiting speakers
6th Form partnership group
Fundraising
On-line Agony Aunt
Youth Parliament
Front desk
Sports leaders
Naming student voice as ‘The Voice’ (also a singing contest pupils like).
Non-uniform days for charities
Sub-committees for various issues (Buildings & Environment, Relationships & Behaviour, Learning & Teaching, Events & Fundraising)
Young chamber
Links with local youth council and local area action group
SNAG: School Nutrition Action Group
Youth Parliament
Prefects involved in charity/local fundraising and activities
International school
Working groups: Environment, Website, Canteen, Fundraising & Events
Student guides
Analysis
The first thing that struck me was simply how many ideas were under the ‘teaching and learning’ heading. A few years ago very few schools even saw this as an appropriate issue for school councils and student voice to touch on. During our discussions throughout the day it was also clear that it was the area that all of the teachers in the room wanted students to be able to have more of an impact on.
The methods suggested demand a little more examination though. This is not my list and I would not suggest any school should be doing all of these things (I don’t even know what all of them are) but most are worth a go. However, whilst there are many very good ideas here, I wouldn’t classify all of them as ‘student voice’. I think a distinction should be made between ‘student leadership’, ‘students given responsibility’ and ‘student voice’. All can be useful but confusing them can have unintended consequences for learning.
Having students as receptionists, showing people around the school and presenting at conferences is excellent: the students learn skills, and better understand how the school works, the school demonstrates its ethos of putting young people at its heart and the guests/visitors/delegates get a different perspective on the school. Everyone wins. Unless you tell the young people that this is their way of having a say in how the school runs, in how they learn, because it’s not. It teaches them that you (and by extension others in power) don’t know how to listen and don’t care to give them the appropriate opportunity to be heard. That’s not a good thing for your school, or society as a whole.
It’s somewhat similar to the experience of the Games Makers at the Olympics. They were integral to its success and thousands of them gave their time gladly and were rightly proud of the part they had played. If they had been recruited with the promise that they would ‘have a say’ in how the Games was run would they have been so happy to turn up on day two when it became clear on day one that their job was just to point people in the right direction?
So be clear about the opportunities available to students, why they are valuable, what they will get out of it, what they can contribute, but don’t over-promise.
Type
(Asher’s) definition
Examples
Learning opportunities
Students given responsibility
Students are asked to carry out duties that someone else has defined.There is little or no opportunity for them to change what these duties are.
Monitors
Prefects
Student receptionists
Guide for visitors
Sports captains
Peer mediators
Skills for a particular job
Learning how the school functions
Responsibility
Mediation
Being a role model
Student leadership
Students take on a leadership role in issues that do not affect the core business of the school or their community.These roles are not initiated by students, but they may be quite self-directed in the way they fulfil them.
Fundraising for external charities
Student mentoring
Debating society
Student ambassadors
Running after-school clubs
Sports/drama/arts leaders (who just assist the teacher)
Being /having positive, young role models
Planning
Organisation
Presenting
Developing responsibility and independence
Student voice – individual
Students are asked, as individuals, to feed in to the decisions made about them in school.
Surveys
Feedback forms
Polls
Individual, self-directed study
That students’ views and opinions are valued
That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
Student voice – democratic
Students are asked to collectively feed in to decisions made about the core business of the school (T&L, buildings, behaviour, policies, rules)This needs to involve some level of discussion, collaboration, negotiation and compromise. It is not simply passing on 1200 views, but coming to some shared positions.
School councils (backed by an effective, whole school structure)
Students as researchers group
Student governors
Student sub-committees
Compromise
Negotiation
Responsibility
Understanding of how the school works
Being a representative
Organisation
Communication
Planning
That students’ views and opinions are valued
That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
“College is a cultural mixing pot, so it’s impossible to say ‘this is what The Students want’, student voice enables teachers to be aware of the huge variety of wants and needs.”
Student governor
Key benefits:
The culture of ‘high respect’ goes hand in hand with ‘high discipline’. There are no bells or uniforms and also no detentions. Students are expected to be responsible, treated as though they can be and so they are.
Staff and students all buy in to and contribute to school improvement: “Staff are with student voice, the school is not for teachers to teach and students to listen; students help the school progress.”
Student-led clubs and societies give every student the opportunity to lead, whilst greatly broadening the range of extra-curricular activities for everyone. This requires minimal staff support.
Students are very clear of the skills they are learning through being representatives, leaders and active participants in their school. They link these directly to the roles they want to take on in later life, both in employment and in wider society.
Top advice:
“Start small, let it grow and learn from other schools.” Student governor
“It’s not necessarily the loudest or most confident students who have the best ideas. Student voice is every student’s view, not just the ‘leaders’ in the school. All roles should be important, it is not to do with how many ‘leaders’ there are.” Student governor
“Communicate and be diverse. If you are the ‘same old, same old’ people, people will not be interested. Give it creativity and glamour. Find different ways to talk.” Student governor
“Student voice is about being in the community, not just the school: connecting students and the school with what’s going on outside.” Student ambassador
“Engrain things from a young age, so people know how to use their voice.” Student ambassador
Beauchamp shows how it values student voice by creating professional-looking posters of all the representatives and teams and the things they’ve been doing. These are displayed all over the college.
Methods used:
Student governors
Rather than a school council the top-level student representation at Beauchamp is a group of four student governors from Year 13 (they are elected while they are in Year 12). This structure was suggested by a student five years ago and has been running since then. Student governors are elected by students from across the whole-school. Any student is able to stand; they realise it will be a significant commitment of time but that their potential to make an impact on the college is equally significant. Their role is to represent the views of all students to the college’s management and to co-ordinate and initiate many of the student-led projects.
The student governors meet with the vice-principal every Monday morning for an hour and a half to catch up with what each other are doing and what the school is working on. Any other student or member of staff can also attend these meetings to comment on issues being discussed or bring up new ones. Students can also get their views to the student governors through their Facebook page, suggestion box or by seeing them in their office. The student governors also attend all meetings of the full governing body – as associate governors – and are given voting rights when they turn 18. Having students as associate governors is a possibility open to all schools.
Student ambassador
The student ambassador is a new role at Beauchamp College. This is an appointed post, rather than elected. The student ambassador’s job is to create links between the student body and the local community. He has been working on representation at the local youth council as well as inter-generational schemes with the local elderly.
The student ambassador sees his role as giving a greater number of students the opportunity and encouragement to become involved in making a contribution to the school and wider community. He has set out to do this in a creative way to add to the avenues for student voice and leadership offered through student governors, INSTED, etc.
‘INSTED’
Like the student governors, INSTED was suggested by a student. It is an internal evaluation of teaching and learning led by a student team that has been running for four years. Places on the team are advertised annually and anyone can apply. Everyone who applies to take part can do so. They are trained by a member of staff who is also an ex-Ofsted inspector, who co-ordinates and supports the INSTED team.
The aims of INSTED are to:
Celebrate the positive aspects of teaching and learning;
Suggest areas for improvement and constructively help the college to move forward to be the best.
The INSTED team do this through lesson observations and discussions with staff and students; these follow a set format developed by the school. The results of these are compiled in to reports by a student co-ordinator. This is given to the teacher concerned and to the head of department.
The scheme is seen as a huge success with students being able to see the impact they are having in the classroom and teachers requesting INSTED observations as they see it as a way to push forward their own practice.
Students appointing staff
Students are heavily involved in all staff appointments at Beauchamp, including the appointment of the new principal. Where they have gone further than most schools is that they have completely managed the appointment of a member of staff. The job description and person specification of the Key Stage 5 manager, a pastoral role, was written by students; they advertised the post, managed the interviews and made the appointment. It was felt that as the role was primarily working for the students then the students should make the appointment. The process gave the students a real insight in to what goes into recruitment and the college is very happy with the appointment made.
In the recent process of appointing a new principal, students were present at all stages or the 2 week process, bar one interview.
Student-led clubs and societies
The college has a system whereby students can apply to set up and run clubs and societies, like in many university student unions. This not only greatly increases the number and range of extra-curricular activities the college can run, but provides a great number of leadership opportunities for students. The sense of ownership and responsibility this gives to students means that minimal staff support and supervision is needed.
These clubs and societies can come from any aspect of students’ lives, covering religious, sporting, cultural, philosophical and creative interests.
Student-led research
This offers all students the opportunity to become involved in research. Students are encouraged to choose an area which is of particular interest to them but is also in some way linked to the college’s corporate plan. All students who join the programme initially attend a seminar at a university campus in order for them to experience a taste of university life as well as learning the rudiments of carrying out a research project. Students can work individually or as a team and are allocated a mentor who supports and guides them throughout the process. There are currently over 40 students involved in the programme.
Students present their recommendations to the college leadership team once their data is collected and analysed. As students frequently tackle these projects from a different perspective to staff, their observations are of particular interest and regularly student proposals are both innovative and thought provoking.
About the school (adapted from Ofsted):
Beauchamp is a coeducational comprehensive 14-19yrs Upper School, with approximately 2150 students. It was formerly an old-established grammar school in Kibworth dating back 600 years. It is currently situated on the southern outskirts of Leicester city, in an area considered to be relatively affluent.
The Sixth Form is one of the country’s largest, with over one thousand of the college’s 2150 students enrolled. 58 per cent of all students are from ethnic minority backgrounds, including 39 per cent Indian, 6 per cent Asian and 13 per cent mixed, producing a rich and diverse centre of learning for students. 32 per cent of students have a first language other than English. The college has about one third of the national average proportion of students with learning difficulties and/ or disabilities. However the proportion of students with a statement of SEN is about average.
Beauchamp consistently achieves above the national average GCSE and A Level results and ‘outstanding’ Sixth Form Ofsted reports. Amongst its other achievements Beauchamp is an International School, with Leading Edge and Training School status. The college gained technology specialist status in 1996 and gained a second specialism in vocational education in 2006.
Involver conducted these case studies for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in 2011, as part of a project to encourage schools to involve their students in decision making
On Friday 11 November, Tottenham-based, social enterprise, involver, will be taken over by pupils from Welbourne Primary School. Four pupils will be made Directors of involver for a day, running the organisation and deciding on its future strategy.
This is being organised as part of a national day of action by young people, co-ordinated by the Children’s Commissioner for England, under the banner of Takeover Day 2011.
The enterprising young pupils will be writing new resources for other schools to use, blogging about their day, calling up Haringey schools to talk about working together and creating a strategy for involver to follow for the rest of the year.
Martell, 11, who will be one of the Directors for a day, is excited by the opportunity, “I think it’s good that we’re going to get to run involver, because their business is about schools and kids, so we’ll have good ideas about what they could do.”
Asher Jacobsberg, one of involver’s founders and it’s (current) Director, said, “We help schools to get young people learning about democracy by playing an active part in running their schools, so this is a great opportunity for us to practice what we preach. I think we’ll finish this day with better, more relevant ideas for how we can help primary-age students than we could come up with in a year on our own.”
Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England said: “I am very excited about our fifth Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day this year, and I look forward to hearing about what people are doing. The day provides such a brilliant opportunity for children and young people to make a difference to their schools and communities, have their voices heard and challenge the stereotypes about them that we hear too often. Children and young people have so much to offer. They bring ideas, imagination and energy which can really make a difference to organisations.”
The Welbourne pupils will start by learning about what a social enterprise is and then move on to the real work: creating a strategy for involver’s work with primary-age pupils. Once they’ve thrashed that out they will be starting to put it in to action.
Pupils might end up outlining books to help school councils involve the whole school, organising events for Haringey schools, or writing sessions for training other young people. Involver are clear that what the Welbourne pupils do really is up to them, they are the bosses.
Involver have committed to carry through on the strategies decided by the young people and credit them as colleagues on any materials arising from their work.
The new headteacher of Welbourne Primary School in Tottenham – the school I’m a governor of – has asked me to help set up a new school council. My first step is to come up with a draft policy that I’ll use as the starting point for discussions with staff and pupils.
Download this sample policy to adapt and use: [download id=”240″]
I’m obviously trying to keep it short and simple so everyone can understand it. Here’s my first attempt. I’ll update it as the discussions progress. Do you have any comments or suggestions?
Well, I couldn't quite get it down to 10, but it's what we're aiming for.
What is our school council for?
The school council is about:
Learning to work together
Learning about democracy
Learning how to play a positive role in our community
The school council’s job is to involve everyone, not do everything. It needs to get everyone:
Finding things they want to change
Coming up with ways to make them better
Putting those ideas in to action
Seeing what works (evaluating)
How does our class council work?
Our whole class has a meeting every 2 weeks on [day] at [time].
We decide what we’re going to talk about the day before the meeting, so everyone has time to think.
A different person runs the meeting each time (with help from the teacher if they need it).
A different person takes notes each time (with help from the teacher if they need it).
We choose two people from our class to go to a whole school council meeting.
What will the school council do for our class?
When you give your class representative an idea, she or he will:
Note it down
Take it to the next school council meeting
Tell you what is happening to your idea within two weeks
The school council will try to make your idea happen by getting:
Permission
Support
Money
Time
If they can’t they will tell you why not.
If they can, they will want your class to help make your idea happen.
What will teachers and TAs do for the school council?
Make sure meetings happen when they are supposed to.
Support pupils to run meetings.
The Headteacher will answer all the school council’s questions within 1 week.
If the Headteacher has to say ‘no’ to anything, she will explain why.
Now, this isn’t as short and snappy as I’d hoped, but I think it’s a good start. We’ll see what we can cut out as we go, without losing the essence of it. We’ll also be trying to create a pictorial version. I’m sure doing that will help us work out what’s really essential.
Download this sample policy to adapt and use: [download id=”240″]
The excellent Pathways Through Participation project has just published its final reports (in summary and full detail). They’re really worth a read for anyone looking to improve participation in schools. Whilst their focus was on adults – what gets them in to active citizenship, what keeps them involved – the lessons they’ve drawn from it hold true for young people too.
I particularly liked these simple equations:
Participation equations from Pathways Through Participation: Why participation starts, continues and stops.
It’s vital to remember that in a community as diverse as a school the motivations and triggers will need to be many and varied to engage a wide variety of students. Just having a school council isn’t enough. A school council that sees its role as ‘involvers‘ – as people whose job it it is to figure out what would involve other students – would be a great start. The role of the staff then is to add in the other part of the equation, creating opportunities and ensuring the resources are in place for students to take advantage of them.
